TAMPA, Fla. - It's coming a week earlier than last year - and probably a week sooner than both would have liked - but Bob Huggins and John Calipari are meeting again.
TAMPA, Fla. - It's coming a week earlier than last year - and probably a week sooner than both would have liked - but Bob Huggins and John Calipari are meeting again.
West Virginia's 84-76 win over Clemson and Kentucky's 59-57 nail-biter over Princeton Thursday put the No. 22 and fifth-seeded Mountaineers into a 12:15 p.m. Saturday NCAA tournament game against No. 11 and fourth-seeded Kentucky at the St. Pete Times Forum.
After West Virginia's win over Clemson Thursday, Huggins recounted his Sunday-night text exchange with Calipari when the latter told him the two would be in the same region and meet. That was just before the brackets were announced.
"Either Cal has got somebody on the inside or he's clairvoyant,'' Huggins said. "I'm not sure which.''
A year ago, Huggins' Mountaineers beat Calipari's Wildcats 73-66 at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y. That was for the right to go to the Final Four in Indianapolis.
This one will be for the chance to move on to the East Regional in Newark, N.J., probably to face overall No. 1 Ohio State next Friday unless the Buckeyes don't make it.
Freshman Brandon Knight's driving layup with two seconds to play gave Kentucky its win over Princeton. Darius Miller scored 17 points and Josh Harrellson had 15 points and 10 rebounds to overcome generally sub-par efforts by Kentucky's freshmen, who are the core of the team.
Miller, a 6-7 junior who started last year's Elite Eight game against the Mountaineers, thinks he knows what to expect on Saturday.
"We know they're going to be a very tough team, very physical team, and we're going to have to be ready to go,'' Miller said. "We haven't, well, I personally haven't seen a lot of them this year, haven't seen a lot of video on them, so I don't know what all to expect. But I know they're going to have talented players, and like I said, they're going to be tough.''
Briefly
TAMPA, Fla. - It's coming a week earlier than last year - and probably a week sooner than both would have liked - but Bob Huggins and John Calipari are meeting again.
West Virginia's 84-76 win over Clemson and Kentucky's 59-57 nail-biter over Princeton Thursday put the No. 22 and fifth-seeded Mountaineers into a 12:15 p.m. Saturday NCAA tournament game against No. 11 and fourth-seeded Kentucky at the St. Pete Times Forum.
After West Virginia's win over Clemson Thursday, Huggins recounted his Sunday-night text exchange with Calipari when the latter told him the two would be in the same region and meet. That was just before the brackets were announced.
"Either Cal has got somebody on the inside or he's clairvoyant,'' Huggins said. "I'm not sure which.''
A year ago, Huggins' Mountaineers beat Calipari's Wildcats 73-66 at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y. That was for the right to go to the Final Four in Indianapolis.
This one will be for the chance to move on to the East Regional in Newark, N.J., probably to face overall No. 1 Ohio State next Friday unless the Buckeyes don't make it.
Freshman Brandon Knight's driving layup with two seconds to play gave Kentucky its win over Princeton. Darius Miller scored 17 points and Josh Harrellson had 15 points and 10 rebounds to overcome generally sub-par efforts by Kentucky's freshmen, who are the core of the team.
Miller, a 6-7 junior who started last year's Elite Eight game against the Mountaineers, thinks he knows what to expect on Saturday.
"We know they're going to be a very tough team, very physical team, and we're going to have to be ready to go,'' Miller said. "We haven't, well, I personally haven't seen a lot of them this year, haven't seen a lot of video on them, so I don't know what all to expect. But I know they're going to have talented players, and like I said, they're going to be tough.''
Briefly
Clemson was playing its second game in roughly 36 hours against West Virginia, and that probably had a little something to do with the Mountaineers being able to rally after falling behind in the first half.But it wasn't the only reason.
"We spread them out a lot in the second half, used a lot of screens and cut them up,'' Cam Thoroughman said. "That really wears on teams, I think. Yeah, maybe the fact that they played two days ago accelerated [the process] a little bit, but I think we grind teams down regardless.''
Clemson still managed to pressure West Virginia much of the game and a few times it worked. But WVU ended the game with only 11 turnovers, so it wasn't a huge factor.The Mountaineers were able to defeat the full-court pressure with a couple of ball handlers in Joe Mazzulla and Truck Bryant and with Thoroughman setting screens for them before halfcourt. Several times this season opponents have run right into the 6-7, 235-pound Thoroughman and wound up worse for it. Clemson managed to avoid that, but just barely.
"A couple of times I saw guys looking around [to see if they were about to run into a Thoroughman screen] and I wasn't even around them,'' Thoroughman said. "It gets in your head a little bit, I think.''
Bryant, with 19 points, passed the 1,000-point mark for his career Thursday. It was an accomplishment that did not go unrecognized by Mazzulla when he was told of it."Truck, man, congratulations on a thousand points,'' Mazzulla shouted so everyone in the locker room could hear. "On a thousand shots.''
In fact, Bryant now has 1,016 points on "just'' 818 shots. His career field goal percentage is 35.8.
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
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